ScheduledTweets: Free And Fully Ajaxed PHP Application To Schedule Tweets

Ben — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:30:01 +0000

Almost every Twitter user needs the ability of scheduling tweets. There may be a tweet that you need to send later or you may want to Tweet 7/24 but you must sleep as well .

Although there are web based services which enable you to schedule tweeting, you may not want to give your Twitter password.

Here comes ScheduledTweets. It is a 100% free web application to schedule your tweets that you can install into your web hosting account.

ScheduledTweets is built with PHP, uses MySQL to store the data & its interface is fully Ajaxed.

It enables you to define time-intervals which your tweets will be sent every x minutes. You can enter unlimited tweets, drag’n drop your tweets to change the order they will be sent.

Also, URL shortening service TinyURL is integrated for shorter tweets.

ScheduledTweets comes with a web-based friendly installer that helps you define database & Twitter information easily.

Tip: Follow WebResourcesDepot on Twitter & get more resources!

Why To Use ScheduledTweets?

Twitter is both an instant messaging & a micro-blogging platform. You will probably not schedule your personal tweets (I won’t, as it clearly becomes meaningless) but if you are regularly sharing stuff on a subject (like I do), then it has the same benefit as scheduling a post on a blog.

How To Use?

Once you are logged in,

Add tweets to the queue (you can drag’n drop order them)
Add schedules like: on Mondays, between 10:00 to 16:00 tweet every 60 minutes .Schedules are not that smart -currently- & you can define crossing schedules.

How To Install (Automated)?

Create a MySQL database & user
After downloading it, unzip the files to a folder & upload them to your hosting account
Run http://www.yourdomainname.com/scheduled-tweets-url/index.php
Define the MySQL database information you created in the first step. Also define your Twitter info and desired ScheduledTweets admin info
Click install
Setup a cron job to http://www.yourdomainname.com/inc/functions.php?getAction=cronTweet (the interval must be lower than your smallest interval defined in ScheduledTweets)
Click “Start ScheduledTweets” button at the top menu
That’s it

How To Install (Manual)?

Create a MySQL database & user
After downloading it, unzip the files to a folder & upload them to your hosting account
Run setup.sql (inc/setup/setup.sql) on your database
Edit the options in inc/config.php (database info, Twitter info, scheduledTweets info)
Setup a cron job to http://www.yourdomainname.com/inc/functions.php?getAction=cronTweet (the interval must be lower than your smallest interval defined in ScheduledTweets)
Click “Start ScheduledTweets” button at the top menu
That’s it

How To Setup Cron Jobs:

If your hosting provider does not enable you to setup cron jobs than you can use these free web services as well:

Else:

How to Create a Cron Job (Scheduled Task) for Your Website or Blog

Roadmap:

Multiple Twitter accounts support
Multiple URL shortening services support
Displaying tweets sent previously
Disable crossing schedules

License:

ScheduledTweets is free to use for both personal & commercial projects. But it can not be sold or re-distributed in anyway.

Thanks to:

P.S. I’m more a Microsoft scripting languages guy (sorry ), wanted to dive into PHP & this project is the longest code I’ve written with PHP. So, I’ll be glad to hear any improvements.

Update (20 April 2009):

V1.1

inc>functions.php is updated to fix the non-functioning start-stop button.

Learning jQuery » Tweets